PM Comments on Addition of New Junior Ministers  

On April third, Prime Minister John Briceño announced new portfolio assignments, as well as the appointments of three additional ministers of state, including Alex Balona, Marconi Leal Senior, and Jorge Espat.  In the wake of that announcement, the opposition has been critical of the decision to include more junior ministers as part of the Briceño administration.  This morning, when we caught up with the prime minister, we asked him about the recent changes.

 

Isani Cayetano

“You’ve expanded the number of junior ministers in government.  How do you respond to the criticism levied by the United Democratic Party, in terms of the specific roles of these ministers of state?”

 

Prime Minister John Briceño

“Well I think [that] they are the last to be able to talk because of what they did when they were in government.  The point that I was trying to make is that, first of all, it does not cost much to the voters or the taxpayers.  Why?  Because they have been chairpersons of house committees and that had a, because of that they had to increase their salaries.  Now that they have become ministers of state, that is going to be reduced so that they don’t have an imbalance in the amount of monies that they collect along with their colleagues.  What is important is that they will be able to provide more work and to be able to do good work for the people, not only in their constituencies but in the country to help the ministers.  We have a lot of work ahead of us and we believe that they are still, time is coming up on us and we need to be able to get the work done.”